A History of California Agriculture

Chapter 2. A History of California Agriculture

Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Rhode Abstract Authors' Bios

The history of California agriculture entails a story Alan L. Olmstead is a distinguished research professor of innovation and conflict as farmers and their allies in the Department of Economics at the University repeatedly remolded their environment to create an of California, Davis and a member of the Giannini extraordinarily diverse and production agricultural- Foundation of Agricultural Economics. He can be contacted industrial complex. This is not just a story of the triumph of by email at [email protected]. Paul W. Rhode is a individual entrepreneurial initiative in a largely unfettered professor in the Department of Economics at the University competitive economy, because the actual outcomes often of Michigan and a research associate at the National Bureau depended far more than commonly realized on aggressive of Economic Research. government interventions that defined access to land, water, markets, technologies, and labor; and which helped, often despite farmer objections, control potentially catastrophic plant and animal diseases.

1 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues

Table of Contents

Abstract...... 1 Authors' Bios...... 1 Introduction...... 3 The Grain Empire...... 4 Bonanza Farms...... 4 Biological Innovation and Failure...... 4 Intensification and Diversification...... 5 Indicators of Change...... 5 Table 1. California’s Agricultural Development...... 5 Figure 1. Distribution of California Cropland Harvested, 1879–2007...... 6 Explaining the Transition...... 6 Hitherto Neglected Factors...... 7 The Cost of Capital...... 7 Biological Learning...... 7 California’s White Gold...... 9 The Introduction of Cotton...... 9 Figure 2. California Cotton, 1910–2017...... 9 Mechanization...... 9 One-Variety Community...... 10 Livestock Production...... 11 Ranching...... 11 Figure 3. Livestock Inventories, 1850–2007...... 11 Dairy Herds...... 12 Government Interventions to Control Diseases...... 12 Mechanization and Farm Power...... 14 Induced Innovation, Path Dependency, and Supply-Side Forces...... 14 Farm Power...... 14 The Grain Harvest...... 15 Irrigation...... 17 Reshaping the Landscape...... 17 Irrigation Districts...... 17 Adverse Consequences...... 18 Labor...... 19 A History of Strife...... 19 A Comparative Perspective...... 19 Table 2. Agricultural Labor in California and the United States...... 20 Labor Mobility...... 20 The Domar Model...... 21 The Puzzle of Labor-Intensive Crops in a High-Wage Economy...... 23 Wages, Land, and Transportation...... 23 Conclusion...... 24 An Emphasis on Quality...... 24 References...... 26

2 A History of California Agriculture

Introduction

In recent years, California has accounted for over one- This chapter analyzes major developments in California’s tenth of the value of the U.S. agricultural output. Perhaps agricultural history to provide a better understanding of more impressive than the value of farm output is the great how and why the state’s current agricultural structure diversity of crops, the capital intensity, the high yields, and and institutions emerged. We focus on major structural the special nature of the state’s agricultural institutions. transformations: the rise and fall of the extensive grain- California's agriculture evolved differently from what was growing economy of the 19th century; the shift to intensive found in the home states and countries of the immigrants orchard, vine, and row crops; and the emergence of who settled and farmed its soils. These differences were modern livestock operations. Intertwined with our discus- not just an outcome of the state’s distinct geoclimatic fea- sion of sectional shifts will be an analysis of some of the tures; they were molded by the farmers, laborers, research- special institutional and structural features of California’s ers, railroad barons, and policymakers who interacted to agricultural development, including farm power and create one of the most productive and dynamic agricul- mechanization, irrigation, and the labor market. In these tural-industrial complexes in the world. areas, California’s farmers responded aggressively to their particular economic and environmental constraints to Two contrasting legends dominate the telling of Califor- create unique institutional settings. The results have been nia’s agricultural history. The first extols California farmers remarkable, albeit with significant environmental problems as progressive, highly educated, early adopters of modern and continuing labor unrest. technologies, and unusually well organized to use irriga- tion to make a “desert” bloom. Through cooperation, they prospered as their high-quality products captured markets around the globe. This farmers-do-no-wrong legend is the mainstay of the state’s powerful marketing cooperatives, government agencies, and agricultural research establish- ment, and largely ignores agricultural workers. The second and darker legend sees the California agricultural system as founded by land-grabbers whose descendants continue to exploit migrant workers and abuse the Golden State’s natural environment. Even in its mildest form, this view faults California farmers for becoming full-fledged capital- ists rather than opting for a more environmentally and labor-friendly system of family farms as in the Midwest. The contest between these competing interpretations of California’s farm system has raged for the past one-and- a-half centuries, with each side seldom even talking to the other. Neither legend has engaged in a systematic and objective analysis of the available data nor offered the comparative perspective needed to assess why California agriculture developed as it did.

3 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues

The Grain Empire

Bonanza Farms winter-habit varieties in the fall to allow the seedlings to emerge before winter, or spring-habit varieties in the Early settlers found an ideal environment for rais- spring shortly before the last freeze. The difference was ing wheat: great expanses of fertile soil and flat terrain that winter-habit wheat required prolonged exposure combined with rainy winters and hot, dry summers. By to cold temperatures and an accompanying period of the mid-1850s, the state’s wheat output exceeded local dormancy (vernalization) to shift into its reproductive consumption, and California’s grain operations began to stage. Spring-habit wheat, by contrast, grew continuously evolve quite differently from the family farms of the Amer- without a period of vernalization, but generally could not ican North. The image is vast tracts of grain grown on huge survive extreme cold. With the mild winters of California, bonanza ranches in a countryside virtually uninhabited farmers learned it was advantageous to sow spring-habit except at harvest and plowing times. California grain wheat in the fall. farms were very large for the day and used labor-saving and scale-intensive technologies, pioneering the adoption California’s wheat experience exemplifies the importance of labor-saving gang plows, large headers, and combines. of biological innovation. After learning to cultivate Sonora Californians vigorously pursued the development of tech- and Club wheats in the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s, California nologies and production practices suited to early Califor- grain growers focused most of their innovative efforts on nia’s economic and environmental conditions. This search mechanization, and purportedly did little to improve cul- for large-scale, labor-saving technologies culminated in tural practices, introduce new varieties, or even maintain the perfection of the world’s first commercially success- the quality of their seed stock. According to contemporary ful combined grain harvesters by the Holt Manufacturing accounts, decades of monocrop grain farming, involv- Company and other local manufacturers in the early 1880s. ing little use of crop rotation, fallowing, fertilizer, or deep Combines became common in the California grain fields plowing, mined the soil of nutrients and promoted the by 1890 (Olmstead and Rhode, 1988), when California was growth of weeds. By the 1890s, there were frequent com- the second largest wheat-producing state, following only plaints that what had been prime wheat land would no Minnesota. longer yield paying crops. In addition to declining yields, the grain’s quality suffered, becoming starchy and less Some bonanza farms planted thousands of acres and were glutinous, and thus fetched a lower price. Contrary to first far larger than Midwestern operations. They would estab- impressions, these unsustainable “soil-mining” practices lish many precedents. Most of the wheat and barley was may well have been “economically rational” for individual shipped to European markets, setting a pattern of integra- farmers, given California’s high interest rates in the mid- tion into world markets that has characterized California 19th century. The result of declining yields and quality was agriculture to the present. Their size, the extent of mecha- that, in many areas, wheat ceased to be a profitable crop nization, and a reliance on hired labor would also become and was virtually abandoned (Rhode, 1995; Olmstead and hallmarks of the state’s farm sector. Rhode, 2008).

Biological Innovation and Failure

In addition, California grain-farmers developed novel biological systems, growing different varieties of wheat and employing fundamentally different cultural techniques than their eastern brethren. When eastern farmers migrated to California, they had to relearn how to grow wheat. In the eastern United States, grain growers planted either

4 A History of California Agriculture

Intensification and Diversification

Indicators of Change every aspect of the state’s development after 1880 reflected the ongoing process of intensification and diversification. Between 1890 and 1914, the California farm economy Between 1859 and 1929, the number of farms increased shifted from large-scale ranching and grain-growing opera- about 700 percent. The average size of farms fell from tions to smaller-scale, intensive fruit cultivation. By 1910, roughly 475 acres in 1869 to about 220 acres in 1929, and the value of intensive crops equaled that of extensive crops, improved land per farm dropped from 260 acres to about as California emerged as one of the world’s principal pro- 84 acres over the same period. These changes ushered in ducers of grapes, citrus, and various deciduous fruits. Tied vastly different production arrangements driven by the to this dramatic transformation was the growth of allied differing requirements of extensive grain operations com- industries, including canning, packing, food machinery, pared with intensive fruit farms. Movements in cropland and transportation services. harvested per worker also point to increased intensification Table 1 provides key statistics on the transformation of after the turn of the century. The statewide land-to-labor California agriculture between 1859 and 2007. Almost ratio fell from about 43 acres harvested per worker in 1899

Table 1. California’s Agricultural Development

No. of Land in Improved Cropland No. of Farms Irrigated Ag. Labor Farms Farms Land Harvested Irrigated Land Force (1,000) ------(1,000 Acres)------(1,000) (1,000 Acres) (1,000) 1859 19 8,730 ------53 1869 24 11,427 6,218 -- -- 60-100 69 1879 36 16,594 10,669 3,321 -- 300-350 109 1889 53 21,427 12,223 5,289 14 1,004 145 1899 73 28,829 11,959 6,434 26 1,446 151 1909 88 27,931 11,390 4,924 39 2,664 212 1919 118 29,366 11,878 5,761 67 4,219 261 1929 136 30,443 11,465 6,549 86 4,747 332 1939 133 30,524 -- 6,534 84 5,070 278 1949 137 36,613 -- 7,957 91 6,599 304 1959 99 36,888 -- 8,022 74 7,396 284 1969 78 35,328 -- 7,649 51 7,240 240 1978 73 32,727 -- 8,804 56 8,505 311 1987 83 30,598 -- 7,676 59 7,596 416 1997 74 27,699 -- 8,543 56 8,713 260 2007 81 25,364 7,633 52 8,016 NA Sources: Taylor and Vasey, “Historical Background,” in Rhode, 1995 U.S. Bureau of the Census: Fifteenth Census 1930, Vol. 4; Census of Agriculture 1959, California, Vol. 1, Part 48; 1980 Census of Population, California, Vol. 1, Part 6; Census of Agriculture 1997, California, downloaded from http://www.nass.usda.gov/census/census97/volume1/ca-5/ca1_01.pdf; 1990 Census of Population, California, Section 1; 2000 Census, “Industry by Sex : 2000 Data Set: Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3)—Sample Data” downloaded at http://factfinder.census. gov; USDA, Census of Agriculture 2007 Census, Volume 1, Chapter 2: State Level Data. https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/Full_Report/Volume_1,_ Chapter_2_US_State_Level/ Thomas Weiss, Unpublished data

5 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues

Figure 1. Distribution of California Cropland Harvested, 1879–2007

10,000 Wheat Corn Vegetables for Sale Barley Hay Cotton 9,000 Rice Fruit and Nuts Other 8,000 7,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 Acres of Cropland Harvested (1,000) 1,000 0

1969 1879 1889 1899 1909 1919 1929 1939 1949 1959 1978 1987 1997 2007

Sources: USDA, Census of Agriculture 2007 Census, Volume 1, Chapter 2: State Level Data. https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/Full_Report/ Volume_1,_Chapter_2_US_State_Level/ to 20 acres per worker in 1929. The spread of irrigation terms of the crops produced—the scale of operations, the broadly paralleled the intensification movement. Between quantity and seasonality of the labor demanded, and the 1869 and 1889, the share of California farmland receiving types of equipment needed—California agriculture was a water through artificial means increased from less than one very different place than it had been 50 years earlier. percent to five percent. Growth was relatively slow in the Figure 1, which shows how cropland harvested was dis- 1890s, but expansion resumed over the 1900s and 1910s. By tributed across selected major crops over the 1879–2007 1929, irrigated land accounted for nearly 16 percent of the period, displays the transformation in further detail. In farmland. 1879 wheat and barley occupied over 75 percent of the Data on the value and composition of crop output place state’s cropland, whereas the combined total for the inten- California’s agricultural transformation into sharper relief. sive crops (fruit, nuts, vegetables, and cotton) was around Between 1859 and 1929, the real value of the state’s crop five percent. By 1929, the picture had changed dramatically. output increased over 25 times. Growth was especially Wheat and barley then accounted for about 26 percent of rapid during the grain boom of the 1860s and 1870s, associ- the cropland harvested and the intensive crop share stood ated primarily with the expansion of the state’s agricultural around 35 percent. In absolute terms, the acreage in the land base. But improved acreage in the state peaked in intensive crops expanded more than ten times over this 1889, and cropland harvested peaked in 1899. Subsequent half-century, while that for wheat and barley fell by more growth in crop production was mainly due to increasing than one-third. output per acre and was closely tied to a dramatic shift in the state’s crop mix. After falling in the 1860s and 1870s, Explaining the Transition the share of intensive crops in the value of total output climbed from less than 4 percent in 1879 to over 20 percent Many of the commonly accepted explanations for the in 1889. By 1909, the intensive share reached nearly one- causes and timing of California’s structural transforma- half, and by 1929, it was almost four-fifths of the total. In tion—such as the advent of the transcontinental railroad, 6 A History of California Agriculture the spread of irrigation, and the slump in world grain prices is that real fruit prices fell far more rapidly than prices—fail under close inspection. The transcontinental grain prices, so movement in the ratio of wheat and grain railroad was completed in 1869, and one of the first effects prices favored wheat production. In addition, very little was an increase in the importation of fruits from the East. of the land taken out of wheat production was replanted At that time, California was not yet self-sufficient in fruit in fruit trees and vines. Finally, the peak labor demands production. Monopoly railroad pricing limited exports for wheat were much earlier in the year than for fruits. If from California, and shippers of canned and dried fruits anything, the two types of crops complemented each other found ocean transport preferable. In the 1880s, the Santa Fe by providing workers with steadier employment. Railroad connected to California, creating more competi- tion. In addition, during roughly the first 15 years of rail- Hitherto Neglected Factors road availability, the rudimentary Southern Pacific service was not well suited to handling perishable commodities. If the usual explanations for the movement from extensive Key changes occurred in the mid-1880s, when the Southern to intensive crops all fail, how do we account for the shift? Pacific began express shipments of entire trains carrying The surprising result is that exogenous declines in real fruit in ventilated cars, and refrigerator cars were intro- interest rates and “biological” learning deserve much of the duced in 1888. These changes in handling and shipping credit for the transformation (Rhode, 1995; and Olmstead were facilitated by cooperatives that helped to assemble and Rhode, 2008). large quantities of fruit, which received preferential service from the railroads. So, the transcontinental rail service The Cost of Capital played little role in the initial spurt in the California fruit industry, but eventually became important for the fresh Isolated from America’s financial markets, California fruit trade. At first, most canned and dried fruit and wines farmers faced high—even astronomical—interest rates, still traveled via ship. which discouraged capital investments in activities such as tree crops that would not begin yielding an income for A second explanation argues that irrigation was essential many years. Rates fell from well over 100 percent during for the transition to intensive agriculture. However, a close the Gold Rush to about 30 percent circa 1860, and the look at the data shows that irrigation lagged intensifica- downward trend continued with real rural mortgage rates tion. As late as 1899, irrigated land accounted for only 12 approaching 8 to 12 percent by 1890. The implications of percent of California’s improved farmland and less that 25 falling interest rates for a long-term investment such as an percent of all cropland harvested; over 70 percent of the orchard were enormous. As one Bay Area observer noted state’s grape acreage and about 60 percent of its orchard- in the mid-1880s, the conversion of grain fields to orchards fruit acreage was not irrigated. Thus, as with railroads, “has naturally been retarded in a community where there irrigation would become important, but it was not a causal is little capital, by the cost of getting land into orchard, and necessity for the growth of the California fruit economy. waiting several years for returns (Burns, 1888).” The break- Another explanation points to the slump in world grain even interest rate for the wheat-to-orchard transition was prices stimulating farmers to transition to orchard and vine about 10 to 13 percent; at rates above 15 percent the value crops. This story depicts intensive fruit farmers in direct of investments in orchards started to turn negative. These competition with extensive wheat farmers: a decline in estimates conform closely to the interest rate levels prevail- world wheat prices would reduce California wheat produc- ing in California when horticulture began its ascent. tion, thereby freeing land and labor for fruit production. However, the real price of wheat fell by about 28 percent Biological Learning from 1870 to 1900; but in the late 1990s and the decade of A second key supply-side force was the increase in horti- the 1900s, real wheat prices recovered, rising at about one cultural productivity associated with biological learning, as percent a year, precisely when California wheat production farmers gradually gained the knowledge of how to grow shrank most. Further evidence discrediting the hypothesis new crops in the California environment. Yields for leading that the rise in fruit production was tied to the fall in wheat

7 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues tree crops nearly doubled between 1889 and 1919. When The Agricultural College of the University of California, the Gold Rush began, the American occupiers knew little under the leadership of Eugene Hilgard and Edward Wick- about the region’s soils and climate. As settlement contin- son, intensified its research efforts on horticultural and viti- ued, would-be farmers learned to distinguish the better cultural problems after the mid-1880s. By the early 1900s, soils from poorer soils, the more amply watered land from the USDA, the state agricultural research system, and local the more arid, the areas with moderate climates from those cooperatives formed an effective working arrangement to suffering greater extremes. Occasionally overcoming deep- acquire and spread knowledge about fruit quality and the seated prejudices, farmers learned which soils were com- effects of packing, shipping, and marketing on spoilage paratively more productive for specific crops (U.S. Weather and fruit appearance. These efforts led to the development Bureau 1903; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Tenth Census 1880, of pre-cooling and other improved handling techniques, Vol. 6, Cotton Production, Part 2, 1884). contributing to the emergence of California’s reputation for offering high-quality horticultural products. This learning California fruit growers engaged in a similar process of process eventually propelled California’s horticultural experimentation to find the most appropriate plant stocks sector to a position of global leadership. More generally, and cultural practices. Varieties were introduced from the example of the state’s horticultural industry highlights around the world, and new varieties were created. In the the important, if relatively neglected, contribution of early 1870s, USDA plant specialists established the founda- biological learning to American agricultural development tion for the state’s citrus industry with navel orange bud- before the 1930s (Olmstead and Rhode, 2008). wood imported from Bahia, Brazil. Prune and plum trees were imported from France and Japan; grape vines from The application of science, strict quality control in the fields France, Italy, Spain, and Germany; and figs (eventually and packing houses (often via policies supported by coop- together with the wasps that facilitated pollination) from eratives), and a rapid and quality-conscious transportation Greece and Turkey. Plant breeders also got in on the act. system to bring fruits to the market, all supported by a The legendary Luther Burbank, who settled in California commercial financial network, was the landmark creation in 1875, developed hundreds of new varieties of plums of California’s agribusiness community. This integrated and other fruits over his long career (Tufts, 1946; Hodgson, system became known as the “California Model,” and was 1993). the envy of fruit producers around the world. It allowed California producers to capture the high-price end of mar- In part, the growth of horticultural knowledge occurred kets across Europe. through the informal “folk process” but, over time, the process of research and diffusion became increasingly A second major transformation took place before 1930, formalized and institutionalized. Agricultural fairs served with the increased cultivation of row crops including sugar to demonstrate new practices and plants. As an example, beets, vegetables and, most notably, cotton (see Figure 1). a series of major citrus expositions, held annually in These changes represented an intensification of farming, Riverside from the late 1870s, helped popularize the new requiring significant capital investments and significant Bahia orange variety. An emerging group of specialty farm increases in labor. The rise of row crops often led to a vast journals, such as the Southern California Horticulturist, Cali- increase in productivity on what had been marginal or fornia Citrograph, and California Fruit Grower, supplemented under-utilized lands. The advent of cotton, which by 1950 the stalwart Pacific Rural Press to spread information about had become the state’s most valuable crop, offers another fruit growing (Teague, 1944; Cleland and Hardy, 1929). important case study in the continuing evolution of Cali- The California State Board of Horticulture, formed in 1881, fornia agriculture. As with the shift to fruit crops, the shift provided an active forum for discussion of production and to cotton was also associated with significant scientific and marketing practices, especially through its annual conven- institutional innovations. tion of fruit growers.

8 A History of California Agriculture

California’s White Gold

The Introduction of Cotton freedom from pests. Second, the scale and structure of cotton farms was remarkably different in California. From From Spanish times, visionaries attempted to introduce the mid-1920s through the 1950s, the acreage of a Califor- cotton into California on a commercial basis. A variety of nia cotton farm was about five times that of farms in the factors—including the high cost of labor, the distance from Deep South.1 As an example of the structural differences markets and gins, and inadequate knowledge about appro- between California and other important cotton states, in priate varieties, soils, etc.—doomed these early efforts. The 1939 farms producing 50 or fewer bales grew about 17 per- real breakthrough came during World War I when high cent of the output in California, but in other leading cotton prices, coupled with government research and promotional states, farms in this class produced at least 80 percent of all campaigns, encouraged farmers in the Imperial, Coachella, cotton output. Thus, it is not surprising that California’s and San Joaquin Valleys to adopt the crop. Figure 2 illus- gross income per cotton farm was almost nine times the trates acres harvested, bales produced, and yields per acre national average (Musoke and Olmstead, 1982). from 1910 to 2017. The tremendous absolute increase in California’s cotton acreage from the 1920s to 1980 contrasts with the absolute decline nationally. California’s acreage Mechanization in cotton ranked 14th out of 15 cotton-producing states in Other distinctive features of California cotton farms were 1919; by 1959 it ranked only behind Texas. their more intensive use of power and their earlier mecha- Several factors distinguished California’s cotton industry nization of pre-harvest activities. In 1929 a California farm from other regions. First, cotton yields were typically more than double the national average. High yields resulted 1 Some of these San Joaquin Valley farms would grow into immense from the favorable climate, rich soils, controlled application holdings. The J.B. Boswell company is purportedly the world’s largest of irrigation water, use of the best agricultural practices private farm and cotton farm, credited with owning over 135 million acres. Arax and Wartzman, 2005. and fertilizer, adoption of high-quality seeds, and a relative

Figure 2. California Cotton, 1910–2017

4,000 2,000 Acreage Harvested Bales Produced Yield 3,500 1,750

3,000 1,500

2,500 1,250

2,000 1,000

1,500 750

1,000 500

500 250 Yields in Pounds Per Acre Harvested Per Yields in Pounds 0 0

Acreage Harvested and Production (1,000's) 1910 1930 1950 1970 1990 2010

Source: USDA, National Ag Statistics Service: https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/

9 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues was almost 20 times more likely to have a tractor than a One-Variety Community Mississippi farm (U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Agriculture: 1959, General Report: Statistics by Subjects, California was also home to the largest one-variety cotton Vol. II). The Pacific Rural Press in 1927 offered a description community. In the first decades of the 20th century, USDA of the highly mechanized state of many California cotton cotton specialists became increasingly alarmed by the farms: “men farm in sections.... By the most efficient use declining quality of American cotton due to the effects of the boll weevil, which prompted farmers to switch to of tractor power and tools, one outfit with a two-man day- earlier-maturing but lower-quality cottons. In addition, light shift plants 100 acres per day, six rows at a time, and smaller production units in the South, seed mixing at gins, cultivates 70 acres, four rows at a time (April 2, 1927).” The and market failures in cotton grading and marketing, more rapid adoption of tractors created a setting favorable contributed to the quality problem. After about a decade to further modernization. When picking machines became of one-variety experiences in the Southwest, the California available, farmers already possessed the mechanical skills legislature declared eight San Joaquin Valley counties and and aptitudes needed for machine-based production. Riverside County as a one-variety community. The 1925 The larger size of cotton operations in California and the legislation stipulated that only Acala cotton, bred by an more intensive use of tractors reflected a fundamentally association research facility, could be planted, harvested, different form of labor organization than existed in the or ginned in an area of more than four million acres. In the South. By the 1940s, on the eve of cotton harvesting mecha- early years, the California one-variety system probably had nization, most cotton in California was picked on a piece- the desired effects of increasing quality and prices of the rate basis by seasonal laborers under a contract system state’s cotton. However, John Constantine, Julian Alston, (California Committee to … March 15, 1951; Fisher, 1953). and Vernon Smith demonstrated that by the late 1970s, this Although conditions varied, a key ingredient was that a system was becoming increasingly inefficient, costing the labor contractor recruited and supervised the workers, and state’s cotton farmers about $180 million a year. In the rest dealt directly with the farmer, who might have had little or of the nation, one-variety communities had faded away in no personal contact with his laborers. This type of arrange- the 1950s, but in California the system lingered on far too ment implied different class and social relationships from long (Constantine, Alston, and Smith, 1994; Olmstead and those that prevailed in much of the South. The California Rhode, 2008).2 farm worker was more akin to an agricultural proletarian As Figure 2 makes clear, after reaching a peak circa 1980, than to a peasant. The proverbial paternalism of Southern California’s cotton acreage and production declined planters toward their tenants had few parallels in Califor- rapidly. Yields continued their upward march, and over nia. Tenants remained on their allotted plots year-round, the 2007–2011 period were still nearly double the national while many California farmworkers followed the harvest average. The dramatic fall in cotton’s importance once cycle, migrating from crop to crop. again reflects the dynamism of California agriculture as As with many crops, California cotton growers also led growers responded to changing environmental condi- the way in harvest mechanization. Many of the factors tions and opportunities. Rising water cost and growing discussed above—including pre-harvest mechanization pest problems made cotton production less lucrative while (and familiarity with machines), relatively high wages, especially in Fresno County, farmers converted consider- large-scale operations, high yields, a flat landscape, and able acreage to more lucrative crops such as almonds, a relative absence of rain during the harvest season—all grapes, and tomatoes. Another change not evident in aided in the adoption of the mechanical harvester. Spindle Figure 2 is that since the 1980s, there has been a marked picking machines first appeared on a commercial basis increase in the importance of high-quality, extra-long following World War II. In 1951 over 50 percent of the Cali- staple, Pima cotton, which was planted on about one-half fornia crop was mechanically harvested compared to about of the state’s cotton acreage (Geisseler and Horwath). 10 percent for the rest of the nation. And roughly one-half of the country’s machines were in California (Musoke and 2 For more traditional accounts see Turner, 1981; Weber, 1994; and Briggs Olmstead, 1982). and Cauthen, 1983.

10 A History of California Agriculture

Livestock Production

Ranching Flint-Bixby, Irvine, Stearns, and Hearst, operated on extremely large scales. For example, Henry Miller and Similar forces—early adoption of large-scale operations Charles Lux amassed more than 1.25 million acres of land, and advanced technologies—characterized California’s often with valuable water rights (Igler, 2001). With the livestock economy. The broad trends in livestock produc- intensification of crop production in California, aggregate tion in California since 1850 are reflected in Figure 3, which livestock activities tended to grow slowly. Although the graphs the number of head on various types of livestock as smaller, family-sized fruit farms began to replace the large 3 aggregated into a measure of animal units fed. California bonanza grain farms and livestock ranches, “general” emerged from the Mexican period primarily as a cattle farms, modeled on Midwestern prototypes, remained producer. A series of droughts and floods in the 1860s dev- rare. This is reflected in the relatively small role of swine astated many herds, and in the 1870s, sheep-raising had production in Figure 3. Largely as a result, over the 20th largely replaced cattle-ranching (U.S. Bureau of the Census, century, livestock production has been relatively less Census of Agriculture 1959, General Report, Vol. II). important in California than in the rest of the country. The market value of livestock and livestock products sales as a Many of the livestock ranches of the nineteenth century, share of the sales of crops, livestock, and livestock products including Miller-Lux, Tejon, Kern County Land Company, has generally exceeded one-half nationally but usually hovered around a third in California. 3 This measure combines livestock into dairy-cow-equivalents using the following weights: dairy cows=1; non-dairy cows=0.73; sheep=0.15; goats=0.15; hogs=0.18; horses and mules=0.88; chickens=0.0043.

Figure 3. Livestock Inventories, 1850–2007

6,000 Milk Cows Other Cattle Horses and Mules Sheep Hogs Chickens 5,000

4,000

3,000

2,000

Number of Animal Units 1,000 (Milk Cow Equivalents, 1,000's)

0

1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1959 1969 1978 1987 1997 2007 Sources: USDA, Census of Agriculture 2007 Census, Volume 1, Chapter 2: State Level Data. https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/Full_Report/ Volume_1,_Chapter_2_US_State_Level/

11 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues

Dairy Herds Arizona to achieve significant efficiencies in converting feed to cattle weight. After the 1960s, larger commercial Dairy and poultry operations represent exceptions to the feedlots started to become more prevalent in the Southwest general pattern of slow growth of livestock farming in the and in the Corn Belt (Hopkin and Kramer, 1965). Again, first decades of the 20th century. These activities steadily technologies and organizational strategies developed in expanded, primarily to serve the state’s rapidly growing California spread to reshape agricultural practices in other urban markets. In 1993 California replaced Wisconsin regions. as the nation’s No. 1 milk producer (USDA, Agricultural Statistics, 1995). Between 1900 and 1960, the number of milk cows grew at a rate of 1.5 percent per annum and Government Interventions the number of chickens at a 3.3 percent rate. Output grew to Control Diseases much faster as productivity per animal unit increased enor- Few observers appreciate how vitally important federal mously, especially in the post-1940 period. From the 1920s government animal-health policies were in the develop- to 2000, California was a leader in milk output per dairy ment of California’s livestock industry. The state faced cow in most years. For example, in 1924 milk production many severe disease outbreaks that farmers, state and per dairy cow in California was 5,870 lbs., while similar local officials, and private veterinarians were incapable of figures for Wisconsin and the United States were 5,280 combating effectively. Two of the most destructive diseases and 4,167 lbs. respectively (USDA, Statistics Bulletin 218, were foot and mouth disease (FMD) and bovine tubercu- 1957). Revolutionary productivity changes have occurred losis (BTB). FMD hit California twice in the 1920s, with the in recent decades. In 2015 California remained the nation’s most serious outbreak erupting in February 1924, when the largest milk producer with almost 41 billion lbs., Wisconsin affliction appeared in a Berkeley dairy herd. As officials was a distant second with 29 billion lbs., and no other state raced to stamp out infected herds, the disease stayed one exceeded 15 billion lbs. But by this latter date, the breeding, jump ahead, eventually spreading to 16 counties. At its feeding, and maintenance technologies that had propelled peak, the USDA’s Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) quaran- the increase in yields had diffused more widely. In 2015 tined parts or all of 23 California counties. The BAI sent 204 California’s 23,002 lbs. per cow ranked ninth in the nation, agents to California and hired numerous laborers, private with Colorado’s average of 25,685 topping the list (USDA, veterinarians, and others to help in the fight. By the end of Agricultural Statistics, 2016). August, officials destroyed more than 100,000 animals. The post-1940 period also witnessed a dramatic revival The FDM crisis was a catastrophe for California’s agricul- of the state’s cattle sector outside dairying. The number tural and tourist industries. Shortly after the crisis began, of non-milk cows in California increased from about 1.4 37 U.S. states and territories and several foreign countries million head in 1940 (roughly the level prevailing since embargoed California products, barring livestock and 1900) to 3.8 million in 1969. This growth was associated poultry (and their products), straw, grain, grasses, fruit with a significant structural change that was pioneered in (including canned and dried fruit), vegetables, nursery California and Arizona—the introduction of large-scale, stock, and more. Oregon and Arizona raised especially commercial feed-lot operations (Committee on Agriculture, severe barriers, blocking roads, and stopping trains. Tourist Nutrition, and Forestry, 1980). By 1963, almost 70 percent traffic was diverted through Utah and Nevada. Civic and of the cattle on feed were in mega-lots of 10,000 or more sporting events were canceled, and parks, hiking trails, and head. A comparison with other areas provides perspec- hunting and fishing areas were closed. tive. In 1963, there were 613 feed lots in California with an average of about 3,100 head per lot. By contrast, Iowa had The problem was amplified because California’s legal and 45,000 feedlots with an average of less than 63 head per lot; constitutional provisions made it difficult, if not impos- Texas had 1,753 feed lots with an average of 511 head per sible, for state officials to efficiently cull animals, to pay lot. Employment of state-of-the-art feed lots and modern compensation, and to cooperate fully with federal officials. science and veterinary medicine, along with favorable This same class of problems also impaired to the state’s climatic conditions, allowed ranchers in California and

12 A History of California Agriculture fight against BTB. By the 1930s, California dairy cattle had become the talk of the nation because of the high incidence of BTB, a disease easily transmitted from cattle to other livestock and from livestock to humans, either by direct contact or through animal products. The most likely path of transmission was in cows’ milk and milk products.

Around 1910, about 15,000 Americans, mostly children, were dying from tuberculosis contracted from animals and animal products every year, and many more suffered pain- ful and debilitating illnesses. The BAI undertook the first steps in what would become a successful national eradica- tion program in 1917. County-by-county and state-by-state, BAI-approved veterinarians entered farms with or without the farmers’ permission, tested animals, and ordered the destruction of animals that tested positive. Where needed, armed guards accompanied the veterinarians. This was an enormously controversial campaign that witnessed count- less confrontations, some gun play, and the declaration of martial law in Iowa.

Contrary to California’s image as a pacesetter, it was the last state in the Union to eradicate BTB due to exception- ally poor state leadership, corruption, funding pressures, state constitutional limitations, and vigorous opposition— including by mobs of farmers. The campaign pitted urban interests against dairy interests, dairymen with clean herds against those with suspect cattle, and reputable scientists against popular quacks. Only when other states and the federal government threatened to quarantine California cattle and cattle products, did the state enact the life-saving policies that allowed it to cooperate fully with federal offi- cials and pay indemnities that were needed to gain farmer cooperation (Olmstead and Rhode, 2015).

13 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues

Mechanization and Farm Power

Induced Innovation, Path Dependency, The climate and terrain were also favorable. Extensive dry and Supply-Side Forces seasons allowed machines to work long hours in near-ideal conditions, and the flat Central Valley offered few obstacles A hallmark of California agriculture since the wheat era to wheeled equipment. In the cases of small grains and has been its highly mechanized farms. Nineteenth-century cotton, mechanization was delayed in other regions of observers watched in awe as cumbersome steam tractors the country because free-standing moisture damaged and giant combines worked their way across vast fields. the crops. Such problems were minimal in California. All In the twentieth century, California farmers led the nation things considered, the state’s climatic and economic condi- in the adoption of gasoline tractors, mechanical cotton tions were exceptionally conducive to mechanization. pickers, sugar beet harvesters, tomato harvesters, electric pumps, and dozens of less well-known machines. Farm Power The story of agricultural mechanization in California illustrates the cumulative and reinforcing character of the Over the years 1870 to 1930, the average value of imple- invention and diffusion processes. Mechanization of one ments per California farm was about double the national activity set in motion strong economic and cultural forces average. The new generation of farm equipment of the 19th that encouraged further mechanization of other, some- century relied increasingly on horses and mules for power. times quite different, activities. On-farm mechanization Horses on any one farm were essentially a fixed asset. A was closely tied to the inventive efforts of local mechan- stock of horses accumulated for a given task was poten- ics. Specialized crops and growing conditions created tially available at a relatively low variable cost to perform niche demands for new types of equipment. Protected by other tasks. For these reasons, an examination of horses on high transportation costs from large firms located in the California farms offers important insights into the course of Midwest, a local farm implement industry flourished by mechanization. In 1870 the average number of horses and providing Pacific Coast farmers with equipment especially mules per male worker was more than twice the national suited to their requirements. In many instances, the inven- average. Throughout the 19th century, California farmers tors designed and perfected prototypes that later captured were using an enormous amount of horsepower (Olmstead national and international markets. Grain combines, track- and Rhode, 1988). laying tractors, giant land planes, tomato pickers, and California was a leader in the early adoption of tractors. sugar beet harvesters, to name but a few, emerged from By 1920, over 10 percent of California farms had tractors California’s shops. compared with 3.6 percent for the nation as a whole. In Several factors contributed to mechanization. In general, 1925 nearly one-fifth of California farms reported trac- California farmers were more educated and more prosper- tors, proportionally more than in Illinois or Iowa, and just ous than farmers elsewhere. These advantages gave them behind the nation-leading Dakotas. These figures under- the insight, skills, and financial wherewithal to support state the power available in California, because the tractors their penchant for tinkering. Nowhere was this more adopted in the West were typically larger than those found evident than on the bonanza ranches that often served as elsewhere. Western farmers were the predominant users of the design and testing grounds for harvester prototypes. large track-laying tractors. The large scale of many California farms allowed grow- The state’s farmers were also the nation’s pioneers in the ers to spread the fixed cost of expensive equipment. The utilization of electric power. The world’s first purported scarcity of labor in California meant relatively high wage use of electricity for irrigation pumping took place in the rates and periods of uncertain labor supply that further Central Valley just before the turn of the century. In 1929 stimulated the incentive to find labor-saving alternatives. over one-half of California farms purchased electric power

14 A History of California Agriculture compared with about one-tenth for the United States (U.S. The Grain Harvest Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census …: 1940, Agriculture Vol. 1, Pt. 6). The adoption of distinctive labor-saving techniques carried over to grain sowing and harvest activities. An 1875 USDA The abundant supply of power on California farms survey showed that over one-half of Midwestern farmers encouraged local manufacturers to produce new types used grain drills, but that virtually all California farmers of equipment and, in turn, the development of new and sowed their grain (USDA, Agricultural Report, 1875). larger implements often created the need for new sources California farmers were sometimes accused of being slov- of power. This process of responding to the opportunities enly for sowing, a technique which was also common to and bottlenecks created by previous technological changes the more backward American South. However, the use of provided a continuing stimulation to innovators. Tracing broadcast sowers in California reflected a rational response the changes in wheat-farming technology illustrates how to the state’s own factor price environment, and bore little the cumulative technological changes led to a markedly resemblance to the hand-sowing techniques practiced different path of mechanical development in the West. in the South. Advanced, high-capacity endgate seeders of local design were among the broadcasting equipment Almost immediately after wheat cultivation began in used in California. By the 1880s, improved models could California, farmers developed a distinctive set of cultural seed up to 60 acres in one day. By contrast, a standard drill practices. Plowing the fertile California soil was nothing could seed about 15 acres per day and a man broadcasting like working the rocky soils in the East or the dense sod of by hand could seed roughly 7 acres per day (Rogin, 1931; the Midwest. In California, ranchers used two, four, and Adams, 1921). The use of labor-saving techniques was even eight-bottomed gang plows, cutting just a few inches most evident on the state’s bonanza wheat ranches, where deep. In the East, plowing 1.5 acres was a good day’s work some farmers attached a broadcast sower to the back of a in 1880. In most of the prairie regions, 2.5 was the norm. In gang plow and then attached a harrow behind the sower, California, it was common for one man with a gang plow thereby accomplishing the plowing, sowing, and harrow- and a team of eight horses to complete six to ten acres per ing with a single operation. day. The tendency of California’s farmers to use larger plows continued into the 20th century. After tractors came California wheat growers also followed a different techno- on line, the state’s farmers were also noted for using both logical path in their harvest operations by relying primarily larger models and larger equipment in tow. This pattern on headers instead of reapers. This practice would have influenced subsequent manufacturing and farming deci- important implications for the subsequent development of sions (U.S. Bureau of the Census, Tenth Census … 1880, combines in California. The header cut only the top of the Agriculture Vol. 3; USDA, Monthly Crop Report, 1918). straw. The cut grain was then transported on a continu- ous apron to an accompanying wagon. Headers typically The preference for large plows in California stimulated had longer cutting bars and, hence, greater capacity than local investors and manufacturers: the U.S. Commissioner reapers, but the most significant advantage was that of Agriculture noted that “patents granted on wheel plows headers eliminated the need for binding. The initial cost in 1869 to residents of California and Oregon largely of the header was about 50 to 100 percent more than the exceed in number those granted for inventions of a like reaper, but its real drawback was in humid areas where the character from all the other states of the Union" (USDA, grain was not dry enough to harvest unless it was dead Agricultural Report, 1869).” Between 1859 and 1873, Cali- ripe. This involved huge crop risks in the climate of the fornia accounted for one-quarter of the nation’s patenting Midwest; risks that were virtually nonexistent in the dry activity for multi-bottom plows, while the state’s contribu- California summers. For these reasons, California became tion to the development of small, single-bottom plows was the only substantial market for the header technology. insignificant (U.S. Patent Office, 1874). The experience with large plows directly contributed to important develop- Header technology evolved in an entirely different direc- ments in the perfection and use of listers, harrows, levelers, tion from the reaper, leading directly to the development and earth-moving equipment. in California of a commercial combined harvester. From

15 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues the starting point of the header, it was quite simple and knowhow and will to manage such large teams. California natural to add a thresher pulled along its side. There had farmers had gradually developed their ability to manage been numerous attempts in the East and Midwest to per- large teams because of their experience with gang plows fect a machine that reaped and threshed in one operation. and headers (Olmstead and Rhode, 1988). Among those that came closest to succeeding was Hiram The difficulties associated with controlling large teams Moore’s combine built in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1835. induced Holt and others to perfect huge steam tractors to But in the humid Midwest, combining suffered from the pull their even larger harvesters. While steam-driven com- same problems with moisture that had plagued heading. In bines never came into vogue, these innovative efforts did 1853 Moore’s invention was given new life when a model have one highly important by-product—the track-laying was sent to California, where it served as a prototype tractor. The first practical track-laying farm tractors (identi- for combine development (Higgins, 1958). After several fied with Holt’s first test in 1904) were initially developed decades of experimentation in California, workable designs for the soft soil of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. were available by the mid-1880s and the period of large- Although the crawlers were first designed to solve a local scale production and adoption began. Most of the inno- problem, this innovation was of global significance. The vating firms, including the two leading enterprises—the Caterpillar Tractor Company (formed by the merger of the Stockton Combined Harvester and Agricultural Works and Holt and Best enterprises) would build larger, more power- the Holt Manufacturing Company—located in Stockton, ful equipment that rapidly spread throughout the world. which became an important equipment-manufacturing center. The reoccurring pattern of one invention creating new needs and opportunities that led to yet another inven- During the harvest of 1880, “comparatively few” machines tion offers important lessons for understanding the lack operated in California, and agricultural authorities, such of development in other times and places. One key to as Brewer and Hilgard, clearly suggest that even those explaining the progression of innovations in California machines were experimental. In 1881 about 20 combines was the close link between manufacturers and farmers were being built in Stockton (U.S. Bureau of the Census, that facilitated constant feedback between the two groups 1883). By 1888, between 500 and 600 were in use. The first and the keen competition among producers that spurred truly popular model was the Houser, built by the Stockton inventive activity and production efficiencies. Entrepre- Combined Harvester and Agricultural Works. In 1889 neurs seeking their fortunes were in close tune with their its advertisements claimed that there were 500 Houser potential customers’ needs and vied with one another to machines in use, and that they outnumbered all other com- perfect equipment that would satisfy those needs. Where petitors combined (Rogin, 1931; Brewer, 1883). Soon there- these forces were not at work, the burdens of history sev- after, machines in the Holt line overtook the Houser. The ered the potential backward linkages that are so critical for innovative products of the Holt company, which included economic development. in 1893 the first successful hillside combine, became domi- nant on the West Coast. By 1915, Holt’s advertisements boasted that over 90 percent of California’s wheat crop was harvested by the 3,000 Holt combines (Economist, Nov. 28, 1914). These machines were powered by teams of 20 or more equines. At this date, the adoption of combine-har- vesters east of the Rockies was still in its infancy.

Combine models that eventually were adopted in the Mid- west and Great Plains were considerably smaller than West Coast machines. The primary reasons for the differences were undoubtedly cost and scale considerations. In addi- tion, eastern farmers generally lacked the horses needed to pull the large western machines and they often lacked the

16 A History of California Agriculture

Irrigation

Reshaping the Landscape in the state. Significant technological changes in pumping technology and declining power costs underscored this Just as there were major investments in mechanical tech- growth. During the 1910s and 1920s, the number of pumps, nologies to increase the productivity of labor, there were pumping plants, and pumped wells doubled each decade, also substantial investments to increase the productivity of rising from roughly 10,000 units in 1910 to just below California’s land. These included agro-chemical research, 50,000 units in 1930. Pumping capacity increased two-and- biological learning concerning appropriate crops and cul- one-half to three times per decade over this period. Expan- tural practices, and land clearing and preparation; but the sion stalled during the Great Depression, but resumed in most notable were investments in water control and provi- the 1940s with the number of pumps, plants, and wells sion. These took two related forms. The first consisted of rising to roughly 75,000 units by 1950. Individuals and measures primarily intended to drain and protect agricul- partnerships dominated pumping, accounting for about tural land from flooding. In this realm, Californians liter- 95 percent of total units and approximately 80 percent of ally re-shaped their landscape as individual farms leveled capacity over the 1920–50 period. the fields and constructed thousands of miles of ditches. In addition, individual farms, reclamation districts, and the Army Corps of Engineers built several thousand miles of Irrigation Districts major levees to tame the state’s inland waterways. Without Since the 1950s, there has been a shift away from individu- these investments, much of the Central Valley’s land could als and partnerships, as well as from groundwater sources. not have been planted in intensive crops (Kelley, 1998). By the 1970s, irrigation districts—public corporations The second form consisted of a variety of measures to run by local landowners and empowered to tax and issue supply the state’s farms with irrigation water. Table 1 bonds to purchase or construct, maintain, and operate details the growth in the state’s irrigated acreage between irrigation works—had become the leading suppliers. The 1890 and 2007. Expansion occurred in two main waves: the district organization rapidly rose in importance over two first lasting from 1900 through the 1920s and the second, periods. In the first, lasting from 1910 to 1930, acreage sup- linked to the Central Valley Project, during the decade after plied by irrigation districts increased from one-in-fifteen World War II. Much of the historical growth of irrigation to approximately one-in-three. Much of this growth came was the result of small-scale, private initiatives rather than at the expense of cooperative and commercial irrigation large-scale, public projects that have attracted so much enterprises. Between 1930 and 1960, the district share scholarly attention. Up until the 1960s, individuals and changed little. During the 1960s, the district form experi- partnerships were the leading forms of organization sup- enced a second surge growth, which was due in part to the plying irrigation water. These forms accounted for roughly rising importance of large-scale federal and state projects, one-third of irrigated acres between 1910 and 1930, and which distributed water through these organizations. By over one-half by 1950. 1969, irrigation districts supplied more than 55 percent of all irrigated acreage. These small-scale irrigation efforts were closely associated with the rising use of groundwater in California over the As with so many other areas of California agriculture, suc- first half of the 20th century. Between 1902 and 1950, the cess in managing water heavily depended on cooperative acreage irrigated by groundwater sources increased more action, rather than just individual initiative. Water access than thirty-fold, whereas that watered by surface sources has often been contentious, pitting farmers against urban only tripled. Groundwater, which had supplied less than interests and farmers against farmers. Everyone involved 10 percent of irrigated acreage in 1902, accounted for over attempted to capture government to gain an advantage. 50 percent of the acreage by 1950. This great expansion Part of the problem is that historically, property rights in was reflected in the growing stock of pumping equipment water were less well defined than in most private goods

17 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues and assets, and rights based on location or historic condi- tions invariably led to inefficient patterns of use.4

Adverse Consequences

Moreover, with few restraints on farmers’ use of private pumps, individual farmers have predictably depleted aquifers, leading to deeper and more expensive wells and higher energy costs. In addition, decades of irrigation, along with the use of fertilizers and chemicals to control weeds and pests, have contaminated the soil with salts, selenium, and other chemicals. As one sign of the proble- min the 1980s, the drainage of farm water into the Kester- son National Wildlife Refuge, located in the San Joaquin Valley, resulted in widespread birth defects in birds and fish from selenium poisoning. More troubling, many have noted high incidents of environmentally-related health problems of agricultural workers. The long-run survival of the current agricultural system is now being questioned (Leslie, 2010). One thing seems certain, especially in light of global warming ushering in an era of hotter and more variable climatic conditions: dealing effectively with these problems will require more regulation to preserve aquifers, use water wisely, and limit harmful practices.

4 Many books deal on this complicated history. Hundley, 1992; Pisani, 1984; and Reisner, 1986

18 A History of California Agriculture

Labor

A History of Strife when the very legitimacy of a union was in question, so the delay in granting a legal basis for agricultural Few issues have invoked more controversy in California unions enhanced the likelihood of conflict. In addition, than recurrent problems associated with agricultural labor. agricultural strikes invariably occurred during the peak- Steinbeck’s portrayal of the clash of cultures in The Grapes harvest season, when the absence of labor could mean the of Wrath represents the tip of a gigantic iceberg. The Chi- loss of an entire year’s crop for the farmer. In most mining nese Exclusion Act, the Gentlemen’s Agreement aimed at and industrial enterprises, strikes could be disruptive, but Japanese immigrants, the forced repatriation of Mexicans they would not threaten an entire year’s output. The fact during the Great Depression, the Great Cotton Strikes of that agricultural workers were often migrant minorities 1933, 1938, and 1939, the Bracero Program (1942–64), the with little power in the community contributed to social United Farm Worker (UFW) and Teamsters' organizing differences and the possibility of violence, including by campaigns and national boycotts, the state’s Agricultural local police (McWilliams, 1939; Flores, 2016; and Olmsted, Relations Act, the legal controversy over the mechanization 2015). of the tomato harvest, the current battles over illegal immi- gration, and now the growing concerns over the health of A Comparative Perspective agricultural laborers are all part of a reoccurring pattern of turmoil deeply rooted in California’s agricultural labor For all the controversy, however, the state’s farms have market. There are few if any parallels in other northern remained a magnet attracting large voluntary movements states. of workers seeking opportunity. Chinese, Japanese, Sikhs, Historians often concentrate on past labor-management Filipinos, Southern Europeans, Mexicans, Okies, and then conflicts. Just as farmers attempted to gain advantages Mexicans again have all taken a turn in California’s fields. through collective action (cooperatives, water projects, Each group has its own story, but in the space allotted here pest control, labor relations, capturing governments, etc.), we attempt to provide an aggregate perspective on some workers attempted collective action in the form of labor of the distinguishing characteristics of California’s volatile unions. The strikes and unrest associated with Cesar agricultural labor market. The essential characteristics of Chavez’s UFW organizing drives in the 1960s and 1970s today’s labor market date back to the beginning of the are probably the best remembered labor-management American period. confrontations, but these events were dwarfed in scale Table 2 offers a view of the role of hired labor in California by the agricultural strikes in the 1930s. In 1933, 50,000 compared to the national situation. Expenditures on hired agricultural laborers walked out of the harvests. The labor relative to farm production and sales have generally largest of these many strikes saw nearly 20,000 cotton been two-to-three times higher in California than for the pickers in the San Joaquin Valley refuse to work. Hired United States. Within California, the trend shows some thugs and police tear-gassed, arrested, and sometimes beat decline. Another important perspective is to assess the strikers. It is useful to contrast the experience of workers in importance of agricultural employment in the economy’s the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. total labor force. Here, the evidence is somewhat The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 granted most surprising. Both agriculture and agricultural labor play a private sector non-agricultural workers the right to relatively prominent role in most renderings of the state’s collective bargaining, but agricultural laborers in California history. But as Table 2 indicates, until the last two decades, did not receive this legal right until 40 years later with agricultural employment as a percent of total employment the passage of the California Agricultural Relations Act. in California has generally been less important to the state Violence was most common during organizing strikes, than for the country. Agricultural labor is two percent of

19 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues

Table 2. Agricultural Labor in California and the United States

Farm Labor Force as a Share of: Hired Labor Expenditures as a Share of:

Gross Value of Market Value of Total Labor Force Farm Production Farm Products Sold California U.S California U.S. California U.S. ------percent------1870 29.3 52.3 20.8 12.7 -- -- 1880 28.6 49.4 ------1890 29.0 41.2 ------1900 25.0 37.6 19.6 7.6 -- -- 1910 17.9 31.1 22.2 7.7 -- -- 1920 17.3 27.0 16.4 6.3 -- -- 1930 13.3 21.4 -- -- 21.4 9.9 1940 11.0 18.9 -- -- 25.3 11.7 1950 7.5 12.3 -- -- 21.8 11.0 1960 4.7 6.7 -- -- 17.7 8.5 1970 3.0 3.5 -- -- 16.2 7.4 1980 2.9 3.0 -- -- 14.7 6.4 1990 3.0 2.5 -- -- 17.1 8.0 2000 1.8 1.5 -- -- 14.7 7.7 2010 2.3 1.6 14.8 7.4 Sources: Margaret Gordon, Employment Expansion and Population Growth, UC Press, Berkeley, 1954 U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Regional Employment by Industry, 1940-1970 U.S. Census Office: Compendium of the Ninth Census 1870; U.S. Bureau of the Census: Twelfth Census 1900, Agriculture; Fourteenth Census 1920, Agriculture, Vol. 5; Census of Agriculture 1959, California, Vol. 1, Part 48; 1980 Census, Population, Vol. 1; 1990 Census, “Labor Force Status and Employment Characteristics: 1990 Data Set: 1990 Summary Tape File 3 (STF 3)—Sample data” and 2000 Census, “Industry by Sex—Percent Distribution: 2000 Data Set: Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3) —Sample Data” downloaded at http://factfinder.census.gov USDA, Census of Agriculture 1997, Table 1 on “Historical Highlights” for United States and California downloaded from: http://www.nass.usda.gov/census/census97/ volume1/us-51/us1_01.pdf and http://www.nass.usda.gov/census/census97/volume1/ca-5/ca1_01.pdf USDA, Census of Agriculture 2007 Census, Volume 1, Chapter 2: State Level Data. https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/Full_Report/Volume_1,_ Chapter_2_US_State_Level/ the state’s total labor force, but it generates a larger share because the daily wage rate in California was typically of news and legislative interest due to the special nature of higher than in other regions of the United States, and the state’s labor institutions. the United States was one of the world’s highest-wage countries. From the beginning of the American period, California farms have relied more extensively on hired labor than their counterparts in the East. At the same time, Labor Mobility Californians never fully developed the institutions of In an important sense, the “cheap labor” in California slavery or widespread share-cropping as in the South. The agriculture was among the dearest wage labor on the parade of migrants who have toiled in California’s fields globe. In addition, one of the remarkable features of have often been described as “cheap labor,” and indeed California agriculture is that the so-called “development” they were near the bottom of the state’s labor hierarchy. or “sectoral-productivity” gap—the ratio of income per But the “cheap” appellation is something of a misnomer, worker in agriculture to income per worker outside

20 A History of California Agriculture agriculture—has been relatively narrow5 due to the sector shrinks relative to the non-agricultural sector. This is relatively high productivity of the state’s agricultural precisely what transpired. At the same time, the closing of sector. In addition, because workers “followed the the frontier meant that the total supply of agricultural land harvest,” moving from crop to crop, they worked more could not continue to grow as it did for most of the 19th days in the high-productivity season than southern century. Thus, unless farms were Balkanized into smaller sharecroppers who experienced long periods of relatively and smaller units, there was no possible way for the 19th low productivity, non-harvest work. century ideal to have continued.

Due to low rates of natural increase, California’s farm The Domar Model sector never generated a large, home-born surplus population putting downward pressure on rural living Economic historians often explain the prevalence of standards. Instead, the sector attracted migrants from the family farm in the northern United States by the the surplus populations of other impoverished regions workings of the Domar model—if there is free land, of the world. For these migrants, many with little facility and crop production technology offers few economies in English, agricultural labor offered a stepping stone of scale and requires little capital, then anyone can earn into the robust, high-wage economy. Hard work, high as much working for themselves as for anyone else savings rates, and the availability of public education (Domar, 1970). There will be no free hired labor, and if worked wonders: few of the descendants of the earlier bound labor (slavery) is illegal, farms will be family- generations of agricultural laborers toil in the fields today. sized. Like many simple abstract models, the implications Some of those separated by only a few generations from of the Domar hypothesis are starker than the realities, the original immigrants are in fact landowners, but most but its fundamental logic explains many features of the (who remained in the United States) have moved into development of northern agriculture. urban blue- and white-collar professions with skills, educational levels, and incomes on par with citizens who California’s so-called “exceptionalism” also follows from are descendants from earlier waves of Northern European the Domar model. In California, very large estates emerged migrants. Over the span of decades, agricultural labor from the legacy of Mexican and Spanish land grants, in California has not been a dead-end pursuit creating railroad land grants, and control of water. Gradually, many a permanent class of peasant laborers, but this result of the large estates were broken up by market forces as has been dependent on the existence of a growing non- California’s agriculture intensified, but many remained— agricultural economy. especially in parts of the Central Valley and the Salinas Valley. A snapshot taken at any number of historical The agricultural history literature often laments the end dates would show a handful of wealthy landowners and of the “agricultural ladder,” whereby workers start off as a multitude of itinerant laborers and their families. The laborers or sharecroppers and work their way up to cash legacy of this unequal “initial” distribution of property tenants and then owners of their own farms. According to rights was that especially land with good access to water the traditional literature, ending this process represented was not free in California. In part because of the initial one of the great failings of 19th century American society. distribution of land and in part due to environmental The literature is particularly critical of California because conditions, production tended to involve larger scale and of its large farms and high ratio of hired workers to farm greater quantities of capital (for machinery, irrigation owners. However, Engel’s Law tells us that, as income works, and orchards). Hence, the gap between the per capita grows, a smaller percentage of income will be assumptions of the Domar model and reality was greater spent on food, so in a growing economy the agricultural in California than in the Midwest. It proved possible for farmers to pay workers more than they could earn working

5 The “development” gap is measured as (Yag/Lag)/(1-Yag)/(1-Lag) where for themselves and still earn a profit. From the mid-19th Yag is the share of income generated in the agricultural sector and Lag is century on, California was characterized by “factories in the share of the labor force employed there. the fields” or “industrial agriculture” or, in more modern terms, “agribusiness.” 21 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues

However, it is important to note that agriculture based on profit-oriented commodity production employing a substantial amount of hired labor was a widespread phenomenon in the period, and by no means limited to California. This organizational form was common to the agriculture of many capitalist countries (i.e., Britain, Germany) in the late-19th century, and it has arguably become increasingly common throughout the United States over the 20th century. From a global historical perspective, the stereotypical Midwestern commercially-oriented family farm employing little or no hired labor is probably a greater exception than what prevailed in California.

22 A History of California Agriculture

The Puzzle of Labor-Intensive Crops in a High-Wage Economy

Today, California farmers often complain about the from cherries to apricots to prunes to walnuts and almonds high cost of labor relative to what their international over a roughly six-month season. Adding other semi- competitors must pay. But when the state first moved into tropical crops, such as cotton and navel oranges, stretched the production of specialty crops, California producers the harvest season into large sections of California into the of fruit and nuts also faced labor costs that were several winter months. By filling out the work year and reducing times higher than their competitors in the Mediterranean seasonal underemployment, the cultivation of a range of Basin. Given these conditions, how did the early crops in close proximity increased the attractiveness to Californian producers not only survive, but in many cases, labor of working in Pacific Coast agriculture. The succes- drive European producers out of markets in their own sion of peak-load, high-wage periods allowed California backyards? workers more days of high-intensity and high-pay work in a year than was possible in most other regions.6 Wages, Land, and Transportation It is also important to recognize that the land used for grain There is no doubt that California was a high-wage and fruit crops was largely “non-competing.” Prime- economy in the national, not to mention global, context. quality fruit lands, with the accompanying climatic condi- For example, in 1910, California farmers paid monthly tions, were so different from the lands that remained in agricultural laborers 71 percent more than did their coun- grain production that they constituted a “specific input.” terparts nationally; day harvest labor was paid a 36 percent Differences in the land values help bring these points premium. The wage differentials with traditional produc- home. According to R. L. Adams’ 1921 California farm ing countries in the Mediterranean Basin were much larger, manual, the market value of “good” wheat land in the state with California farmers paying roughly four to eight times was approximately $100 per acre in the period immediately more. Moreover, most fruit and nut crops were character- before the First World War. “Good” land for prune pro- ized by high labor-to-land ratios. For example, the U.S. duction was worth $350 even before planting and valued Department of Agriculture estimated that in 1939, produc- at $800 when bearing. The “best” land for prunes had a ing almonds on the Pacific Coast required 96 hours per market value of $500 not planted and $1,000 in bearing bearing acre, dates 275, figs 155, grapes 200, prunes 130, trees. Similarly, “good” land for raisin grape production and walnuts 81 hours; this compared with only 6.6 hours was worth $150 raw and $300 in bearing vines; the “best” of labor per acre of wheat (Hecht and Barton 1950). sold for $250 not planted and $400 bearing. Focusing on physical labor-to-land ratios in comparing wheat and fruit One important question is whether grain and fruit actu- production can be seriously misleading because the acre- ally competed for the same land and labor. On the Pacific age used for fruit cultivation was of a different quality (and Coast, the labor requirements of both activities were highly ultimately higher market value) than that used for grains seasonal and their peak harvest demands did not fully (Rhode, 1995; Adams, 1921; Sackman, 2005). overlap. In California, for example, the wheat harvest was typically complete by early July whereas the raisin and wine grape harvest did not commence until September and 6 This argument also draws attention to the important role of labor mobility continued through late October. Hence, a worker could, in the region’s agricultural development, and in particular to the manifold and often conflicting efforts of local authorities to control the migrant flows in principle, participate fully both in the grain and grape of specific ethnic groups. By focusing on the political economy of migration, harvests. Rather than conceiving of the different crops as this literature helps to undermine the notion that labor scarcity was a being competitive in labor, we might be better served by “natural” immutable feature of the region. Rather it was in part an outcome considering them as complimentary. As an example, in the of collective political decisions. The migrant flows presumably would have lush Santa Clara Valley, harvest workers would migrate been far larger but for exclusionary agitation and legislation.

23 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues

Conclusion

A further reason why horticultural crops could compete of the Balkan product in European markets. Not only were was that, unlike the key agricultural staples, many fruit California prunes larger, they also enjoyed other significant and nut products enjoyed effective tariff protection during quality advantages stemming from the state’s better dehy- the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Tariffs almost surely drating, packing, and shipping methods (Morilla Critz, sped up the growth of Mediterranean agriculture in the Olmstead, and Rhode, 1999). Similar quality advantages United States and were strongly supported by domestic applied virtually across the board for California’s horticul- producers, railroads, and packers. One of the recurrent tural crops. justifications for tariffs offered by domestic growers was to help offset high transportation differentials. Almost across It is interesting to note that at least some of California’s the board, Mediterranean producers enjoyed lower freight current problems with foreign competition stem directly rates to the key markets of the Northeastern United States from the ability of others to copy the state’s methods. After (not to mention Northern Europe) than their American the California horticultural industry established its strong rivals did. For example, circa 1909, shipping currants from market presence, the message eventually got through to Greece for New York cost 17 cents per hundred weight other producers. The extensive efforts that producers in while the freight on an equivalent quantity of California other new areas (such as South Africa, Chile, and Australia) dried fruit averaged about one dollar. and in Europe made to copy the California model provide another indicator of the importance of superior technology and organization in establishing California’s comparative An Emphasis on Quality advantage.

For the Pacific Coast fruit industry, the cost of transporta- This essay should provide a historical context for other tion remained an important factor, shaping production and chapters in this volume.7 Responding to market forces, the processing practices. This is reflected in an observation state has witnessed numerous transformations in cropping that has entered textbook economics: that the best apples patterns, labor sources, and technologies. Despite these are exported because they can bear the cost of shipping. It changes, many fundamental characteristics have endured; also helps explain one of the defining characteristics of the many of the institutional and structural features found region’s fruit industry: its emphasis of quality. Local pro- today have deep roots in the state’s past. ducers and packers devoted exceptional efforts to improv- ing grading and quality control, removing culls, stems and Two issues of interest in the literature on agricultural dirt, reducing spoilage in shipment, and developing brand- development warrant mention. First, the history of names/high-quality reputations. This focus makes sense agricultural mechanization in California conforms nicely given the high transportation cost that western producers with the familiar predictions of the induced innovation faced in reaching the markets of the U.S. Atlantic Coast and model: mechanization represented a rational response Europe. by the state’s farmers and mechanics to factor scarcities and the state’s environmental conditions. But to fully To a large extent, the ability of Californians to compete capture the reality of the state’s development, it is useful with the growers in Southern Europe depended on captur- ing the higher end of the market. With only a few excep- 7 Our account has neglected many important crops and activities. More so tions, California dried fruits earned higher prices than their than most states, California’s agricultural economy is really many economies. European competition because the state’s growers gained The grape and wine industries, the specialized citrus economy, the growers a reputation for quality and consistency. As an example, of vegetables, and many others have stories of their own that deserve the United States produced far higher-quality prunes detailed analysis. In a similar vein, our treatment of mechanization represents than Serbia and Bosnia, the major competitors, and as a only a fraction of the more general category of science, technology, and productivity change. result, American prunes sold for roughly twice the price 24 A History of California Agriculture to supplement the induced innovation model with three additional insights: the importance of path dependency (whereby early investment decisions paved the way for subsequent developments); the importance of learning by doing; and the close, ongoing interactions between farmers and inventor-manufacturers.

Secondly, California’s history does not conform to the stan- dard paradigm that treats biological productivity changes (in the context of the literature, this means non-mechanical innovations) as primarily a post-1930 phenomenon in American agriculture. The settlement process, the world- wide search for appropriate crops and cultural practices, the wholesale shift in crop mixes, and the massive invest- ments in water control and irrigation, along with numer- ous other measures, are fundamentally stories of biological investment in a labor-scarce, land-abundant environment. These biological investments transformed the state’s agriculture, vastly increasing productivity per acre and per worker (Olmstead and Rhode, 2008).

25 California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues

References

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